CPP announces record $780B in assets — 47% in the U.S. For all the fear over the U.S. trade war and President Donald Trump's threats to Canadian sovereignty, this country's biggest pension funds remain heavily invested in the U.S. The Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the largest pension fund in the country, announced this week that it has grown to a...
Weeks after the 2025 federal election, Nick Belanger was on the phone when he started receiving calls from an unknown caller. Given he was already on a call, he declined to answer. The person tried again and Belanger relented. “I’m like, hello, who is this? Why do you keep calling me?” he recounts in a livestream. “Is this the Pleb?”...
Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner says access to spaceports is a challenge. The head of Canada's military space division says the country "should absolutely be" concerned about Russia's potential capabilities amid global fears the Kremlin is considering putting nuclear weapons in place to target satellites. "That would be cataclysmic," said Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, Commander of 3 Canadian Space Division during an interview...
The Supreme Court of Canada has invalidated a federal Liberal candidate's one-vote victory in last spring's federal election, pushing the governing party further away from a majority in the House of Commons. Liberal Tatiana Auguste has sat as a member of Parliament since the spring, after being declared the winner over Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, the Bloc Québécois candidate. Sinclair-Desgagné let out...
Remember that old saying "Stick a fork in him, he's done"? Some people are beginning to say that about Donald Trump, which may well work in Canada's favour. A little early or no? Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson on that, and also more on the possible Alberta referendum and Washington's supposed involvement.
This survey gauged the views of Canadians on US support for Alberta separation.
Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives enter February in a weaker position than they held at the start of the year. The PCs remain ahead on vote intention, but their lead has narrowed considerably. Approval of the Ford government has fallen sharply. The desire for change remains elevated. And the Ontario Liberals, despite lacking a permanent leader following Bonnie Crombie’s...
The fun thing about Ottawa is that it’s a town where people will swear with a straight face that they’re not thinking about a thing they are definitely thinking about, which is also the thing everyone is talking about. This week, that thing is snap-election speculation. It’s easy to picture the polls batting their eyelashes and waving seductively at the...
Everybody knows what’s happening with Donald Trump’s threat to block the opening of a Detroit-Windsor bridge. At least, everybody in the political system in Washington and Ottawa. It’s a shakedown, with a choke point in Canada-U.S. relations as leverage. Detroit border crossings have been used that way for years. Now it’s a pretty good analogy for all of U.S. foreign...
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has told residents of Tumbler Ridge that the country is “with you, and we will always be with you”, during a candlelight vigil for the eight victims of a mass shooting that has shattered the small mining town.
Normally, it's considered a good thing when the world beats a path to your door. Maybe not so much when we're talking about nuclear deterrence. At the very least, it is an ominous sign of the times.
The GM plant in Oshawa often feels like a mythical place. Long-time residents in the region tell stories of a time when it was a hub of prosperity for tens of thousands of families. They say, when shifts would end, there were so many GM employees that some roads would become one-way streets so workers could drive home in an...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s well-crafted and eloquently delivered speech at Davos has been widely noted, and I want to start by offering some praise of my own. The Prime Minister is right to restate what many have said for years: Canada must become more self-reliant, less dependent and work with like-minded countries to advance our interests. Conservatives are, as always...
They are greyer now: greyer of hair and face, but also in perception. In their younger days, they saw things more in black and white, as we saw them. But the years have passed, and now we see them through a mist of … what? Nostalgia? Ambivalence? Maybe say complexity, and respect, and, finally, gratitude. They are the lions in...
Many people in Ottawa, even some who know her well, did not know until this week that the former national director of the New Democratic Party, Anne McGrath, is the survivor of a school shooting. McGrath doesn’t tend to bring it up often, but every time there is a school shooting, as there was this week In Tumbler Ridge, B.C....
It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened if a year ago, or even a few months ago, Donald Trump had threatened to block the new Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. Shock and horror on the Canadian side. Front-page coverage in the Canadian media. Opposition calls for the government to do something.
Canada has a big, beautiful piece of infrastructure we think you might be interested in. It’s a tremendous, wonderful bridge, and it’s already been paid for — you only have to take the credit. And just because it’s you, because you’re such a clever and strong president, we named it for the best right-winger the Detroit Red Wings ever had...
Last week Conservative MP for Bowmanville-Oshawa North, Jamil Jivani, stated that he was going down to Washington, DC, in an effort to help move Canada-US trade relations along. Jivani has a longstanding friendship with the US Vice President JD Vance, so it would make sense for him to leverage his personal relationships in a professional capacity. Except, of course, Jivani...
The mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge is the kind of tragedy that Canada, unfortunately, has seen too often in recent decades. It will take some time to fully understand how this horror occurred. But we know the results. Nine people are dead: A mother, an educator, six children, and the shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar.
As part of his trip to Beijing last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Politburo and chair of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress. The readout that emerged from the meeting said they talked about the importance of ongoing parliamentary exchanges and “opportunities for enhanced understanding...
After Donald Trump came out this week with his latest instalment in his Browbeat Thy Neighbour series – his dip into Loo Loo Land with his Truth Social threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge – I was keen to check in on the American reaction, from readers in both conservative and liberal media. Out of about...
If there’s one thing that’s driving me a little nuts about the active petition to foist a separation referendum on Alberta, it’s this: the claim that the process is some kind of benign and beautiful expression of democracy. Because, frankly, no, that’s not really how our democratic system is supposed to work. Canada is not California — which uses tools...
Is artificial intelligence the salvation of mankind, or its downfall? Are markets justified in bidding up AI stocks as high as they have, or is it all a bubble? Will we look back on the hundreds of billions of dollars the AI titans are currently investing in capacity as having laid the foundations for a new age of prosperity, or...
School shootings are the most senseless, shattering event that can befall a community. A feeling of ultimate loss grips the entire nation. Political leaders often have nothing more to offer than their condolences, but people want more than that. They are looking for reassurance, empathy and a sense that someone will do something about it.
When Stephen Harper was Prime Minister I wrote many columns warning about the influence that right wing Americans had on his political operation, and I spent many dreary hours trying to trace his connections south of the border. I now wonder if that was time well spent because, since the second election of Donald Trump, it has become clear that...
As a politician, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has many well-documented strengths. He is a relentless critic of the government he wishes to replace. He grew both his party’s vote share and parliamentary seat count in the last election, bringing the CPC to within spitting distance of victory. And who could blame him for still buzzing over an 87.4 per...
The former PM has devoted much of his post-political career to helping to empower right-wing political parties, but drew the line at threatening Canada’s existence. Stephen Harper came east to celebrate the 20th anniversary of something. While he was at it, the former Conservative prime minister—whether by design or coincidence—took on the task for his party of covering for the...
PIERRE POILIEVRE GAMBLED with his political future—and won—at the Conservative Party of Canada convention in Calgary two weeks ago. Delegates, who gathered under unseasonably warm January skies courtesy of a timely Chinook, were asked whether to grant their leader a vote of confidence. Late that Friday night, the verdict was delivered: 87.4 percent of those who cast a ballot voted...
"Question period is broken," Liberal MP Corey Hogan told the House of Commons last week. In fairness to the current state of question period — and those responsible for it — this is hardly a new complaint. One could spend a long time discussing how Parliament's daily airing of grievances came to be the way it is or who has...
Donald Trump’s threat to prevent the opening of the new Gordie Howe International Bridge unless Canada compensates the United States is but the latest chapter in a series of irrational threats and unjustified punitive measures he has inflicted on our country. Never mind that Canadian taxpayers paid $6 billion for the bridge, which is why there will be a toll...
As Albertans await some clarity from the premier as to whether she’s prepared to champion the cause of Confederation or take on the separatists in any meaningful sense, it falls to others to take up the mantle of national unity.
The prospect of Alberta leaving Canada is such a hot topic that the other potential “leavers” have been overlooked.
We’re becoming familiar with the Alberta government’s give-me-this-or-else demands. The latest one is flimsier than most: it’s based on a falsehood and it amounts to threatening to punch yourself in the face if you don’t get your way. Still, it bears attention because it points to a fundamental flaw in the Alberta separation project, which can no longer be dismissed...
Elections, like the flu, can sneak up on you. They may also be contagious. Not even one year since both men won their own elections, Mark Carney and Doug Ford have reportedly been chatting about another federal election this year.
The Canadian government’s response to the 20-year sentence imposed on Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is the first test of the government’s new “pragmatic engagement” with China. The early signs are that Ottawa is broadly in favour of the pursuit of justice, as long as it doesn’t hamper its trade policy.
In December 2004 I was sitting in the Official Opposition Leader’s Office and the holder of that office, Stephen Harper, walked in. We were working on an election platform because we expected Paul Martin to spring an election quickly after Peter MacKay and Harper merged their respective parties into the Conservative Party of Canada.
Inuit leaders back from a recent trip to Greenland say there's a stark contrast between the infrastructure in that Nordic country compared to Canada's North, and they're calling on the federal government to urgently fill the gap as part of its enhanced focus on Arctic security. "They're way ahead of us," said Paul Irngaut, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI)...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says there's nothing anyone can do to fill the silence left by the loss of those killed in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. The prime minister spoke to a crowd of hundreds at a vigil in the community where people held photos of the loved ones they have lost.
Officers from the five-person RCMP detachment in Tumbler Ridge arrived at the community's secondary school on Tuesday to sounds of fire alarms and a voice yelling from a window that the shooter was upstairs. In seconds they were through the door and up the stairs, where RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said they were met with gunshots. Soon after, more...
The Commissioner of Canada Elections said former Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland unintentionally violated the Elections Act by answering reporters' questions about a 2024 Toronto byelection at two government-organized press conferences. A report on the incidents published by the commissioner's office Friday cites rules restricting who can make a contribution to a candidate. Freeland was the deputy prime minister and finance...
Pact enhances collaboration on surveillance and joint operations. Canada and Denmark signed a defence co-operation agreement on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, setting the stage for a deeper partnership after the Trump administration threatened to annex Greenland. The agreement was signed by Defence Minister David McGuinty on Friday. Originally Prime Minister Mark Carney was supposed to be present...
MONTREAL -- The Quebec Liberals have acclaimed 46-year-old Charles Milliard as their new leader, forgoing the need for a second leadership race in less than one year.
A new study published Friday by the Canadian Climate Institute says Canada is not on track to meet any of its climate targets -- not the 2026 interim emissions reduction target, the 2030 Paris Agreement commitment, or even the long-term goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The report suggests Canada has moved away from its climate goals thanks to...
Mike Dawson says some of his colleagues are angry he's trying to forgo wage hike. The Conservative MP who went public with his intent to refuse a pending parliamentary pay increase was called out by the party whip in front of his colleagues and heckled as he tried to defend his decision, CBC News has learned. In a letter to...
With the fate of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on the line, Conservative MP JAMIL JIVANI is positioning himself as a key cross-border interlocutor. Jivani even scored a White House tour that culminated in a Trump run-in. Not bad.
Today is the deadline to apply to be leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. Candidate Charles Milliard, former head of the Quebec federation of chambers of commerce, has the support of the majority of the party caucus. Mario Roy, a farmer from Quebec's Beauce region, is the only other person who has confirmed an interest in running, but he may...
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani says he stands ready to help Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government when it comes to navigating the upcoming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), after returning from Washington, D.C. last week where he met with senior officials within U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, including Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Trade Representative...
Governor General Mary Simon confirmed she will join Prime Minister Carney at a vigil to the victims of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. on Friday night. Nine people died in the shooting on Tuesday at a home and school in the town of about 2,700 people in northeastern British Columbia. Carney asked all the other federal party leaders...
Liberal MP Jenna Sudds has called for 'flexibility' after fellow local caucus colleague Bruce Fanjoy criticized requirements that public servants work in-office four days a week starting in July, and executives five days a week starting in May.
CALGARY -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she has not signed a petition currently gathering signatures for a referendum to pull the province out of Confederation.
Culture Minister Marc Miller accused a Conservative MP Thursday of misleading a Parliamentary committee by claiming a comment from the head of an independent producers' group in support of the government was made on behalf of the news media. "The job of these people is to make shows. Like with puppets," Miller said to MP Rachael Thomas. "I think you're...
OTTAWA -- The mother of the shooter in the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., killings once posted a photo on Facebook of several long guns in a cabinet with the caption, "Think it's time to take them out for some target practice."
Some members of Parliament are slamming the Liberal government's plan to give new powers to cabinet to exempt individuals or corporations from some federal laws. The exemptions are being referred to as "regulatory sandboxes" and are contained in a clause in the government's omnibus budget implementation bill, currently being debated at a House of Commons committee.
The Bank of Canada’s second-in-command is warning of future inflation risks if investment in artificial intelligence is concentrated among the country’s big companies. Article content Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers said that while large firms have the scale and capacity to make “big bets on technology,” the country’s ailing productivity is more likely to be repaired if there’s broader adoption...
Leaders of a right-wing group pushing a conservative Canadian province to secede and form a new nation say they have been meeting with Trump administration officials to discuss how their radical plan can benefit the U.S. In three separate, highly unusual meetings with officials from the State and Treasury departments, they’ve discussed the logistics of Alberta breaking off from Canada...
Prime Minister Mark Carney's office has confirmed he will visit Tumbler Ridge, B.C., to attend a vigil on Friday, three days after nine people died in a mass shooting there. Carney, who invited other federal party leaders to join him at the vigil, was to have been in Germany for the Munich Security Conference this week but cancelled that trip...
Coalition touts benefits of CUSMA to rural America, key voting block for Trump and Republicans. The powerful U.S. agriculture industry is throwing its weight behind the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, urging the Trump administration to consider the deal's economic benefits to rural America before making any moves to rip it up. Some 40 organizations representing farmers, ranchers, food producers and processors...
Multiple reports argue RCMP's sprawling mandate pulls resources from complex crimes. After months of uncertainty hanging over the RCMP, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says the government is committed to keeping Mounties in the business of day-to-day policing across the country — while signalling that improving the federal crimes wing is his priority. "Bottom line is, we could do both,"...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said the country is in mourning after a tragic shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., left nine dead and more than 25 injured in one of the worst mass killings in Canadian history. Speaking in the House of Commons Wednesday afternoon, Carney said the violence has "left our nation in shock" and his thoughts are with the...
Canada would like to see NATO’s new Arctic Sentry mission become permanent as part of a greater focus on the north for the Western alliance, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says. NATO announced Wednesday it has launched this mission to strengthen its presence in the Arctic as part of an agreement to defuse severe tensions within the alliance prompted by...
Canadian aerospace company Magellan Aerospace Corp. MALJF has signed an agreement with German submarine maker ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) to produce torpedoes for its vessels if the European company’s bid to build Canada’s next submarine fleet is successful.
6 Republicans join Democrats in resolution to terminate president's 'fentanyl emergency' tariffs. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution against President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods, delivering a stinging rebuke to the administration for launching a trade war on its northern neighbour. The House voted 219-211 in favour of a resolution seeking to terminate the national emergency that...
Details are emerging about a mass shooting in a northeastern B.C. community. Ten people are dead, including the suspect, and approximately 25 were injured. Here are key updates as they happen:
Prime Minister Mark Carney has cancelled his plans to travel to Halifax and Munich, Germany, following a deadly school shooting in British Columbia. Carney was to spend Wednesday afternoon in Halifax to announce the defence industrial strategy, before flying on to Europe for the Munich Security Conference. As news of the tragedy unfolded Tuesday evening, Carney's staffers said he was...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he has heard from a number of world leaders offering condolences in the wake of Tuesday's deadly mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. Police continue to investigate two attacks that left 10 people, including the suspect, dead in the tiny community in northeastern British Columbia. Here's a quick rundown of statements posted on social...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says flags on federal buildings will be flown at half-mast for seven days to honour the victims of Tuesday's deadly shooting in B.C. A visibly emotional Carney said Wednesday he has heard from leaders around the world offering condolences, including King Charles. "Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love,"...
All the world's a stage for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has been ordered to sail from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A year ago, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wanted to rebuild trust in federal health agencies, and vowed to employ "radical transparency" to do it.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say President Donald Trump has "gone too far" in sending federal immigration agents into American cities, according to a new AP-NORC poll that suggests political independents are increasingly uncomfortable with his tactics.
Foreign diplomats in Ottawa are applauding the vision of Canada’s foreign policy direction outlined by Prime Minister Mark Carney in his Davos address, but they’re coming to different conclusions about how it will get implemented.
President says he won't allow opening until U.S. 'is fully compensated for everything we have given' Canada. U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, poised to become the newest border crossing between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. "I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is calling on China to release Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai after he was sentenced to 20 years in jail today under a sweeping national security law. Canada joins numerous peers, including the United States and the European Union, in condemning Beijing for the sentence imposed under a law used to crack down on Hong...
Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in one of the most prominent cases prosecuted under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the city's dissent.
Former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland says when it comes to the U.S. and its relationships with other countries on the world stage, it needs to "get their act together." Since his 2025 inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened several countries, including Canada, with annexation and tariffs on goods, creating an ongoing trade war. Freeland, fresh off her January resignation...
Since the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in 2016, the federal government has created certain safeguards and regulatory mechanisms – including data collection – to ensure that people don’t request death because they lack access to care, including palliative care.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Lisa Banfield, common-law wife of the man who meticulously slaughtered 22 people six years ago, recently published a memoir of her life-on-eggshells with a controlling killer.
The head of Ottawa’s public service got an earful from the federal information commissioner about the dismal state of access to information – the sign of a growing rift between the Liberal government and Parliament’s watchdog on transparency. At a Nov. 12 meeting, Caroline Maynard presented Michael Sabia, clerk of the Privy Council, with statistics detailing the deterioration of the...
The RCMP has handed out 23 awards for excellence to officers and employees in Nova Scotia for their performance during the April 2020 mass murders, in which a gunman impersonating a Mountie murdered 22 people in cold blood.
Peter Mazereeuw gets you up to speed on what happened on and away from Parliament Hill this week in this five-minute mini-pod.
Remember that old saying "Stick a fork in him, he's done"? Some people are beginning to say that about Donald Trump, which may well work in Canada's favour. A little early or no? Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson on that, and also more on the possible Alberta referendum and Washington's supposed involvement.
With the polls showing a spike in support for the Liberals, speculation has also spiked about an early election. What do the polls say about whether Mark Carney’s Liberals or Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives should want to head back on the campaign trail in 2026?
Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden joins Playbook Canada from the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, where he’s watching Team Canada compete and looking ahead to a potential Canada–U.S. hockey showdown. But back home, the mood shifts dramatically as news of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., brings Parliament to a halt and forces Prime Minister Mark...
